Enable RDP on Ubuntu
Enable RDP on Ubuntu
Xrdp (X Remote Desktop Protocol) is a free and open-source implementation of the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) that allows users to remotely access graphical desktops running on Unix-based systems. This can be useful for system administration, running graphical applications on a remote server, or providing a graphical desktop environment for users who are not physically present at the computer.
In this blog post, we will walk you through the steps of installing and configuring Xrdp on Ubuntu 20.04.
Prerequisites
- A computer running Ubuntu 20.04
- A user account with sudo privileges
Step 1: Update the system
Before you begin, it is important to update your system to ensure that you have the latest packages and security fixes. You can do this by running the following command in your terminal:
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sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
Step 2: Install Ubuntu desktop environment and Xrdp
Once your system is up to date, you can install Xrdp using the following command:
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sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt install xrdp
Once the installation is complete, xrdp service will start automatically. You can verify the status of the service by running the following command:
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sudo systemctl status xrdp
Step 3: Configure Xrdp
After installing Xrdp, a new system user xrdp is created and an ssl key ssl-cert-snakeoil.key is placed in the /etc/ssl/private/ folder. You need to add the xrdp user to the ssl-cert group to ensure that xrdp can read this ssl key:
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sudo adduser xrdp ssl-cert
Step 4: Restart Xrdp
Once you have made your changes to the configuration file, you need to restart the Xrdp service for the changes to take effect. You can do this by running the following command:
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sudo systemctl restart xrdp
Step 5: Connect to your Xrdp session
Now you can connect to your Xrdp session from a remote Windows machine using a Remote Desktop Client. The hostname or IP address of your Ubuntu system and the port number (default: 3389) are required to connect.
Fix the issue of the black screen
Edit /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh script:
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sudo vim /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh
and add the following line before the line test -x /etc/X11/Xsession && exec /etc/X11/Xsession:
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unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
unset XDG_RUNTIME_DIR